Conventionally, electronic reprographic machines are designed to be either monochrome or full color. Examples of such conventional machines are illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 of the present application. More specifically, FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional monochrome electronic reprographic machine and FIG. 2 illustrates a conventional color electronic reprographic machine.
With respect to FIG. 1, the conventional electronic reprographic machine includes a black and white sensor 1 which receives the image reflected from a scanned document. The black and white sensor 1 converts the received image into digital signals which are fed into a video preprocessor 3. The video preprocessor corrects for any offset or gain drift in the video signal being outputted by the black and white sensor 1. The preprocessed video signal is then fed into a luminance image processing system 5 which performs the necessary image processing operations upon the video signal and prepares the video signal to be used to print a document. The image processed video signal is then fed into an electronic precollation memory 7 which stores the video signal for later use in a printing operation. When the image is to be printed by the electronic reprographic machine, the video signals read out of the electronic precollation memory 7 and fed into a raster output scanner 9. The raster output scanner 9 converts the video image signal into light pulses via a laser wherein the light pulses interact with a xerographic printing system 11 to produce a black and white document representing the image scanned by the black and white sensor 1.
With respect to FIG. 2, the conventional electronic reprographic machine includes a color sensor 101 which receives the image reflected from a scanned document. The color sensor 101 converts the received image into digital signals which are fed into a video preprocessor and stitcher 103. The video preprocessor and stitcher corrects for any offset or gain drift in the video signal being outputted by the color sensor 101 and stitches together the separated color image data. The processed video signal is then fed into a color image processing system 105 which performs the necessary image processing operations upon the color video signal and prepares the video signal to be used to print a document. This processed video signal is then fed into an electronic precollation memory 7 which stores the video signal for later use in a printing operation. When the image is to be printed by the electronic reprographic machine, the video signal is read out of the electronic precollation memory 7 and fed into a raster output scanner 9. The raster output scanner 9 converts the video image signal into light pulses via a laser wherein the light pulses interact with a color xerographic printing system 111 to produce a color document representing the image scanned by the color sensor 1.
Conventionally, if one were to convert a monochrome electronic reprographic system into a full color electronic reprographic system, one would have to totally redesign the electronic reprographic system to represent a color system thereby incurring substantial engineering cost. In other words, to realize a full color electronic reprographic machine, from a monochrome electronic reprographic machine, one would have to completely breakdown the monochrome electronic reprographic machine and rebuild the machine with various new subsystems to make the machine capable of full color reproduction. Such a redesign incurs substantial cost and time in building the full color electronic reprographic machine from a monochrome electronic reprographic machine.
Therefore, it is desirable to design an architecture for a printing system or machine which allows a user to easily convert from a monochrome system to a full color system without incurring substantial engineering cost or time. Moreover, with the advent of digital technology and open architecture and platforms, it is desirable to design an architecture for a printing machine or system which is capable of being readily converted from monochrome to full scale color by inserting a single image processing module into the system.